A New Morning Routine
The first Monday morning we had him, I got up, and he had to get up with me. He was underfoot the whole time. We did go out to the side yard so that he would finally poop outside the house. (This is one of the expected challenges of shelter dogs – no matter how housetrained they were before, there are almost always accidents in the first few days at the new house.) Apparently, the minute I left – C heard the garage door closing, Larry was harassing June and bugging C, who’d only been asleep for 4 hours or so.
Monday evening, we decided to make change in order to ensure Larry gets enough exercise. I’ve made a change to my routine. I am now getting up a half hour earlier in the morning and taking him for an extra walk. Its not a long walk, by any stretch of the imagination, but it gets out some of his energy in the morning and then settle down, so that he’s not harassing C and Junebug before they’re ready to be awake.
Tuesday morning, I get up and leave the bedroom door open, figuring Larry will want to be with me again like he was on Monday. He does come out, see where I am, but then goes right back to be with C. I have to pull him out of the room in order to take him on his morning walk.
We come home, and either June woke up or Larry woke her up, but they play while I get ready for work and have my breakfast. I use treats to get them back in the room with C when I’m ready to walk out the door.
As I’m opening the door to the basement, I can hear Larry scratching at the bedroom door, and I fell bad, thinking C is going to be woken up early again, but I’ve got to go to work, so I’m off.
It turns out, Larry apparently worried for only a minute. C says he got to sleep until he woke up and everyone seemed happy.
Wednesday morning, I get up and leave the bedroom door open. Larry had not been sleeping next to me, but on the footstool have next to the bed for the dogs to use as a step up. He does not come out to check on me. When I’m ready to take him for his walk, he has gotten up on the bed and burrowed under the covers next to C. I end up waking C up in order to get Larry.
Larry and I go on our walk. We come home, and this time, he hangs out with me, not even going back to look in on C and Junebug. When I’m ready to leave, I grab some treat and take him into the room. He doesn’t seem interested in getting on the bed, so I hand him some chicken treat and walk out. He does not come to scratch on the door, or at least not while I can still hear it.
I think he’s enjoying his morning walk/jog. I’m trying to get in better shape, and he really needs to get energy out, so I am trying to jog at least half of the distance (though in intermittent spurts for now). I’m hoping that as I get in better condition, we might be able to go on longer morning walks, distance wise, in the same amount of time, at a jogging pace. Good for both of us.